My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  Oh, but it was Larkin standing there.

  Then a voice called from inside the cabin. “Mommie, Luke is at his back with the rifle and I’m coming out onto the porch.” Hack Jr. come out then and stood beside his mommie. From where I was, I could see that he knowed Larkin but his eyes stayed as cold as ice.

  It seemed like we was all froze in time. All except for my eyes and it seemed like they was everywhere at once. It seemed like I could see everything that was happening in a glance, and I thought that at any minute Mary would lay down the gun and everything would be as it should. But that did not happen for too long, and then I knowed something was bad wrong.

  “Come over here, Roxy,” Mary said, and my heart literally quit beating.

  “Mommie, it’s Daddy. Can’t you see that?”

  “I see him. You come on over here anyways.”

  Roxy looked at me. “Aunt Arty?” she said, and then she took a step away from her daddy and I heard the hammers on that shotgun being pulled back and it sounded loud as hell in that little clearing. I did not even think about it.

  I just stepped out into that hot sun and put myself in between Mary and Larkin.

  “Luke, you get on up here,” I said, and I waited until he was standing there with his daddy.

  When he saw his boy Larkin said, “Ah, Luke,” and reached and gathered him up close to him. I could see Luke’s face over Larkin’s shoulder, and his eyes held no welcome for his daddy.

  “Get on in the house with all of you young’uns,” I said. My voice was rough as a cob and I meant for it to be that way.

  “Do not interfere with this, Arty,” Mary said to me. I felt my chin come out like a rock cliff.

  “You make them young’uns go in that house, Mary, and I mean it. They are innocent lambs in this and should not have to bear it.”

  This give her pause just as I’d hoped it would, and while she was arguing with them I planted myself closer to Larkin. I never took my eyes off Mary and did not even have time to so much as speak to him before the door shut on them young’uns.

  “Get out of my way, Arty.”

  I felt my guts go to water, but I did not move. “No, I will not.”

  We all stood there and I could feel the sweat break loose and go to running down between my shoulder blades. I could not stand it no more, and I turned my back on her and faced my biggest boy.

  His black eyes was watching me like a hawk and his hair was wet with sweat. His shirt looked wet enough to where I could’ve wrung the water from it with my hands. “Oh, Larkin,” I said right low to him, “what is this about?”

  From behind me Mary said, “Tell her, Larkin, as I have not.”

  He flinched at her words. Finally he said to her, though he was looking me eyeball to eyeball, “You should have told her as I asked you to.”

  Mary give a big sigh and I heard the shotgun thump down on the porch. When I looked back at her, she was setting on the top step with the gun beside her. “What, Larkin? What should she have told me?”

  And Mary laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. “Tell her, Larkin.”

  Larkin reached out a hand to me but let it drop back to his side before I had time to do anything. “Oh, God. Where will I start?”

  “At the beginning, Larkin,” Mary said and her voice seemed to echo around in my head.

  Of a sudden I couldn’t stand there in that sun another minute, and I said, “We’re coming to set on the porch, Mary. I feel like I’m going to fall up.”

  Larkin grabbed hold of my arm and I went and set down beside Mary. He moved a little away from us but kept to the shade of the porch. And then he started to talk.

  He said he’d been west to Missouri, south to Florida, and north to Boston since he’d been gone. He’d seen some pretty places and kept company with some pretty rough characters and allowed as that was all right since he was every bit as rough. He had even joined up with a minstrel show and had done a fair bit of singing from the stage. But he said he knowed now that every single step he’d made away from home that he was just making his way back.

  I peeped at Mary and she was just staring out toward the barn. I couldn’t help it when I said, “I know this is bad, Mary, but surely not bad enough to kill him for. I mean I’d feel the same way I reckon if it was Zeke, but I don’t know that I’d take a shotgun after him.” I have to tell you here that when I set down, I put my hind end right square on that gun and nothing short of Gabriel blowing his horn could have got me off of it. And maybe not even that.

  She give me a look. “Quit wallering the truth around, Larkin,” she said. “Tell her like you told it to me in your letter. Or I will one.”

  We set there and all was quiet. Then he give a great sigh and all the hair stood up on my arms, and I almost capped my hand over his mouth to keep him from saying what he aimed to say.

  “Amma,” he breathed and then he told me.

  “It seems I have carried this thing for all my life, but it has only been with me since the day before I brought Hackley home throwed over that mule. Me and him had a big fuss the night before the Battle of Winding Stairs. It seems like that’s all we done there at the last was fuss and fight with each other. I did love him.” Mary made a little sound on that and he glanced quick at her, but then his eyes come right back to where they’d been holding mine. “You will probably hate me all the more for the saying of that one thing, Amma. But I did love him.

  “I didn’t hardly sleep a wink the night before the fight. To tell you the truth, I just sort of dozed around dreaming all manner of foolish things. I was up long before we was called to form up. Right at daylight I went to find Hackley and try to put things right between us. But when I found him he was sound asleep and I did not wake him.

  “We formed up in a double V on either side of the road as it topped the mountain. Kirk put the tallest of us in the back and the shortest out in front and us sharpshooters was right in the middle. I could see Hackley right down in front of me. Then the Rebels come around the curve below us and all hell broke loose. It didn’t take us long to turn them back and of a sudden a big wind come blowing down the hill and took the smoke off with it, and I saw Hackley getting up. He come up on his knees and sort of turned toward me. He was looking me right in the eyes and he knowed it before he hit the ground. I had shot him and he was dead and gone by the time I got to him.”

  And there it was. Now you might wonder how I felt hearing him relate the death of my brother to me like that, and I will have to say that I am still in amazement to this day. They was a brief little flare of pain way down in my heart and I immediately thought how this would hurt Mommie and Daddy and then I recalled that they was beyond this. So I let that go. Then I thought on their young’uns and I knowed right off that they had all knowed it for a long time and that’s why they had acted the way they had a while ago. The only one that would not forgive him was maybe Hack Jr. and I couldn’t swear to that. I searched my own heart again and for just a minute Hack-ley’s face danced in the air right in front of me. But he’d been gone for so very long and though I was sorry, they was no way to change it. We have to go on and life is for the living.

  I LOOKED OVER AT Mary and she was staring at Larkin. “What is it?” she said, and then she laughed. “Oh, I know what it is. You’re thinking Roxyann looks more like me than I do myself.”

  I saw on his face that she’d caught him fair and square, but, bless his heart, he tried to deny it. “No, no,” he said. “You look just like you always did.”

  And I thought to myself, You still can’t lie worth a damn. Then I realized that was what hurt me more than anything else about all this mess. He had not come to me with it.

  Then Mary said in a real soft voice. “Well, did you find your redemption, Larkin Stanton?”

  “Leave him be, Mary,” I said and my voice sounded old as Methuselah.

  “Oh, I aim to leave him be, Arty. I just want to know since he wrote me so many letters about how he was searching for redemption.” />
  Larkin stepped toward her but I held up my hand at him. “No. You leave her be, too,” and I meant that as much as I’d ever meant anything in my life.

  “Your forgiveness is all that matters to me, Mary.”

  She laughed out loud. “I think not, Larkin. The only thing that has mattered to you for a long time is yourself.”

  I could tell that her laughing had hurt him as bad as her words.

  “That’s not true, Mary. I’ve always done for everybody else. Amma, you, and, yes, even Hackley. He always had everything, the best of everything. He always got everything he wanted. Even you. He was not a good man, Mary, and he didn’t deserve you.”

  Mary stared at him. “What are you talking about? His women, his not wanting to fight in the war, what?”

  “Well, all of that.”

  She nodded. “Let’s talk about that word redemption some more, Larkin.” She leaned toward him. “What do you think would’ve happened if Hackley had lived?”

  “Why, I don’t know, nobody knows.” He was flustered and I could tell this was not something he wanted to talk about, but I was curious and I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “You know what I think? I think he would’ve probably got shot by some woman’s husband or bigged some young gal and left me for her.” She pushed the hair back from her face. “I’ve not aged well.”

  What he did then reminded me of Carolina when she was in a big playacting fit and was going about the house all draped in one of my quilts and talking foolishness. I couldn’t even feel sorry for him, though I did almost laugh. “You are the darling of my life. Will you say you’ve forgived me, honey?”

  She waved a tired hand at him. “Oh, get up, Larkin. Go on. Leave.”

  He got up and his face was red as fire. She looked at his big self there in the yard, sweaty and dusty, and she give him the gentlest of smiles.

  That sliced him plumb to the bone.

  “You wanted a big show of some kind, didn’t you?” she asked him. “Me crying, the young’uns wailing and carrying on, you orating, vowing to love me forever and all. Larkin, you have worn me out. Go on and leave. I’m not taking you back.”

  My head was going back and forth between them so fast that I was making myself drunk, and I swear they were acting like I was not even setting there.

  “But you’ve got to,” he sputtered.

  “No, I don’t. I went from Daddy’s daughter to Hackley’s wife to your wife and I’ll not have it again where a man can boss me and tell me what to do.”

  And I could not help it, I thought, Go it, Mary.

  “But, Mary, I can’t live without you. You’re my redemption.”

  This time her laughter carried a measure of sadness with it. “No, honey, I ain’t your redemption now no more than I was before. I’m just a real tired woman.”

  “Hackley would’ve wanted me to look after you. He told me that before he went off to the war.”

  “I know, I know. Poor little Mary, she needs tending to, looking after. Well, not no more she don’t.” She stood up. “It’s sort of funny, Larkin. How you provided for me and Hackley.”

  He looked at her. “Lord have mercy, Mary, I ruined everybody’s life.”

  “No, Larkin, you didn’t. You give me the chance to be something I always wanted to be. Strong and able to do things for myself, depending on nobody but me.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Well, so I helped you by going off and making you be strong. I didn’t help Hackley, though. I just murdered him.”

  I could hold my tongue no longer. “Oh, Larkin, didn’t you hear what she said awhile ago? About what might’ve happened to Hack-ley if he’d lived? Don’t you see, honey? He died with dignity, not caught in the bed with some man’s wife. You give him a noble death in the war. In a way you give Hackley a good, decent way out.”

  The smile that lit Mary’s face offered us the girl she once was. “Now you all go on while I go in and try to make sense of this for the young’uns.” A frown puckered her brow. “I can’t promise you’uns nothing where they’re concerned. Roxy has always been her daddy’s girl, Rosalie will go with her sister. Luke I don’t know about; he’s awfully close to Hack Jr.” The frown deepened. “Hack Jr. is not a good age for this. He’s all full of piss and vinegar. Larkin, I don’t want you to even try to talk to him right now. He’s a lot like his daddy was. Arty, maybe you can try a bit later.” Her eyes met mine and held.

  I give her a little smile and said “Time will take care of it. Just like it takes care of everything else,” I said.

  Her eyes went to Larkin when he said, “Can I come to see you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think I want you to.”

  “But I love you,” he said and the truth of it was in his eyes.

  “Time will take care of that, too. You go on now, Larkin.”

  “The young’uns?”

  “Roxy will find you, don’t worry.” I come up off the porch and offered her the gun. Her hand was on the latch when she turned.

  “You’re not a bad man, Larkin. You really ain’t.”

  And she closed the door softly behind her.

  20

  I HAVE LAID THE picture out one more time and have run my hands over it. I do not need to see it to know what it looks like. I wish you could see it. Larkin and Hackley are all dressed up in their uniform suits. They was both such handsome men that you can see why they each got a little piece of Mary’s heart. Larkin is setting in the chair and Hackley is standing beside him. I reckon the picture-taking man set them up that way because Larkin was so much higher than my brother. I recall his face looks solemn as a judge and his eyes and hair is black as a crow’s wing. Hackley’s eyes looks almost white, and it is left for my old blind eyes to remember the color of them, which was like the blue-eyed grass. He is standing with his pistol out and his elbow is resting on Larkin’s shoulder. His hat is cocked over to the side of his head and his face is just full of devilment. Hackley’s got his fiddle in his other hand. I’m glad in a way that I can no longer see it, as it used to hurt me so. See, the picture was took right before they left for Morganton and Winding Stairs. One month later and the deed was done forever.

  I think Larkin did find his redemption. Him and Carolina come by here awhile ago and she fixed supper for me. They sung a few songs while they was in the kitchen and it done my heart good. Oh, I did not tell you that he married Carolina, did I? Well, he did, and though I fought it and threatened all manner of hellfire and brimstone would be throwed at their heads, it has worked out in the end.

  Just like everything else. Time has took care of it.

  If I live a few more hours it will be 1920. If I live three more months eighty-four years will have rolled over my head. I have hoed a long row. It ain’t always been easy, but Lord it has been worth it. I have raised eight young’uns counting Larkin. And never, no, not for a minute, have I forgot the two I buried. My rough old hands was the very ones that eased most of my own grandbabies into this world. I have laughed more than most folks and I have cried just as much. I have lived hard at times, not so hard at others, and even let some days plumb get away from me. But who has not done the same? I have give and I have took. I have had a good run.

  The smell of lilacs, cold spring water in my mouth on a hot summer day, the colors of fall, the sound of falling snow.

  And what of the greatest of all? What of love? Oh, I have knowed love. Love was blue eyes that growed darker when he looked at me.

  My hands move over the wooden bowl of a soup ladle with a broken handle and a verse from an old love song goes through my head.

  So fare you well, my old true love,

  So fare you well for a while.

  If I go I’ll come again,

  If I go ten thousand miles.

  Some things is just too rich for words.

  Acknowledgments

  THIS STORY IS BASED on family history. Hackley Norton was my grandfather’s uncle and he did die in t
he Battle of Winding Stairs in June 1864. Larkin Stanton did survive the war. His grave stone is located at Walnut, North Carolina. Arty was indeed Hackley’s sister and she is buried on a hilltop in Sodom. The other names, characters, and events exist only in my very active imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously and are not in any way intended to represent specific persons.

  There are so many people to thank for their great insight, inspiration, and support: First and most important—Jim Taylor, my husband, traveling buddy, and Muse—there hath been no greater love—and I could not have written this book without his ear and support. My beloved children, Melanie Rice, Hart Barnhill, and Andrew Barnhill. Lee Smith, my friend and favorite writer, for her unflagging support and encouragement. My agent, Stella Connell, who believed in me enough to take a chance. My editor, Kathy Pories, for her genius, her amazing insight and sensitivity, and for helping me to turn Arty loose to tell this tale. Aidan Quinn for listening and then convincing me I needed to write this story. Renni Browne for her editing suggestions in the early stages of writing this book. The ballad singers of Sodom—Dellie Chandler Norton, Berzillia Wallin, Cas and Vergie Wallin, Evelyn Ramsey, Inez Chandler, and Doug Wallin—they were the keepers of the old songs and their voices are heard throughout this book. My sister, June Gahagan, for reading the book in its infancy and for being the calm at the center of what can sometimes be life’s raging storm. My much loved and appreciated aunt Robenia and uncle Wayne Adams for being two of my most valuable resource people. My cousin Jerry Adams for jogging my memory and for supplying me with so much important information. My other cousins, Sharon Ray, Janet Adams Crowe, Sue Vilcinskas, and Keith Ray for listening, encouraging, and just setting on the porch with me while I rambled on and on. My uncle Ward and aunt Almarie Adams. Joe Penland, Bobby McMillon, and Marilyn McMinn McCredie for their lifelong friendship, music, old sayings, sharp wits, and unfailing ability to keep me grounded and laughing. Josh Goforth for his keen ear and musical genius. Laura Boosinger for the years of friendship and help with the selections and singings of the shape-note hymns. Wayne Martin and George Holt for over thirty years of priceless advice and sharing of frailties. David Perry and Linda Hobson for their much valued input. Lydia Hamessley, Sandy Ballard, William Jolliff, Bill and Fritzi Wisdom, Mimi Wright, Susan Graham, and literally countless other friends and fans that have helped me in so many different ways. Sonia Wallace, Vicki Skemp, James Leva, Amy Rabb, Susan Smith, Robbie Gualding, and Carol Elizabeth Jones for their encouraging words at the very beginning. Martha Fowler for handing me the little “gem” I used in the book. Randall Garrison, who showed Jim and me where the battle of Winding Stairs took place. Taylor Barnhill and Dave McGrew for sharing their knowledge of what this part of the world would have looked like in the 1800s. The Mountain Retreat and Learning Centers for providing the most beautiful place in the world where I wrote most of this book.